Letters: North County, Feb. 16, 2013

The false eco religion

For years, environmentalists tried to get us into carpools, abandon the suburbs and stop road construction. They failed, because that is not what the people wanted. You know, that pesky issue of democracy.

But then, Al Gore brilliantly marketed the idea that unless we did all of the above, the planet was doomed. That idea caught on, and the green movement, with all of its inconsistencies and hypocrisy, is now upon us is in force. It is no longer science, but a religion.

Scientists who don’t toe the line find can find no research funds and become outcasts. And the media joins the marketing effort, dumbing down America, touting the horror stories if we don’t join the Prius movement.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood stars park electric cars in their driveway, but travel in their Bentleys or their Gulfstreams. The politicians travel to destinations only a hundred miles away in a 747. And Al Gore? He picks up $100 million by selling his news outlet to an institution funded by fossil fuels.

We commoners? We’re actually the stupid ones for putting up with this nonsense.

Norman Kelley

Oceanside

The earmarks of a dictatorship

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution puts forth that only the U.S. Congress makes all laws. Executive power vested in the president by the Constitution is meant to facilitate enforcement of a law made by the Congress and nothing more.

It is a matter of record, however, that many executive orders issued border on being laws themselves, thereby violating the Constitution. The worst offender to date is the current president, Barack Obama.

• The contraceptive mandate, in flagrant violation of the rights of religious institutions;

• Environmental Protection Agency regulation to mimic the cap-and-trade bill, which failed in the Congress;

• Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which have just been annulled by a federal appeals court;

• Unwarranted and unaccounted drone attacks;

• Appointment of an excessive number of White House czars, whose actions are mostly unaccountable and, last but not the least;

• Cover-up of the audacious dereliction of duty in the Benghazi affair.

The blatant nature of these excursions is that they are deliberate and provocative, clearly dimming the demarcation of separation of powers and usurping them from the different branches of the government.

Keshava Prasad

Escondido

Get your facts straight

A raspberry to the U-T North County Times for giving a raspberry to the opponents of the Quarry Creek housing project in Carlsbad (“Roses and Raspberries: A ‘Blindly NIMBY’ razz,” Feb. 11).

They failed to include important facts:

Residents of Carlsbad voted for open space acquisition over 10 years ago, and are still waiting. The city appointed committee identified this area as a prime area for acquisition several years ago.

Opponents have asked that this project be scaled back to the eastern side, preserving the integrity of the area next to a wildlife reserve.

Reducing the size of the project will lessen the inevitable nightmare of traffic that has its only egress, College Boulevard.

A raspberry for stereotyping, and for omission of facts.

Renee Huston

Carlsbad

A chilling situation

Former dismissed police officer Christopher Dorner, accused killer of four, has accused the Los Angeles Police Department of lying to protect one of their own, which he says led to his dismissal. Given the LAPD’s penchant for abuse, cover-ups, lies and corruption, it seems highly plausible that the “blue code” was broken by Dorner, who said his training officer kicked and hit a cuffed, mentally-challenged prisoner, whereupon his superior filed false charges against Dorner.

Dorner’s complaints regarding his firing must also ring true to all employees who have been fired for telling the truth about their superiors who have misbehaved and who blamed the accuser, who was then fired. Happens all over this country every single day.

Dorner’s reaction to his allegations are those of a psychotic, homicidal nut ball, who acted in the most cowardly of fashions, killing the innocent daughter of the man who defended him in his dismissal hearing and her fiancee. Whatever righteous indignation Dorner might have had has completely dissipated due to his murderous reign of terror.

However, this should send a chill to anyone who would deny their culpability to their own misdeeds and fire a convenient underling — especially police departments, where protecting their own is more important than culling miscreant, corrupt, dishonest fellow cops.

Greg Morrill

Escondido

Replace farms with solar panels

Logan Jenkins makes a good point when he argues for replacing “Appalachian blight” with a regimented solar farm to, among other things, improve the present untidy viewscape (“A letter to Ramona in her time of sorrow,” Feb. 7).

There is already one commercial solar installation in the Borrego Valley tucked away on long-fallowed farmland. While perhaps not attractive, neither is it an eyesore. In any case, it beats the abandoned vineyards with battalions of forlorn grape stakes.

The only hitch is that it requires a certain amount of water from Borrego’s critically overdrafted sole-source aquifer to keep the panels clean while the fallowed land required none.

On the other hand, if there is a solar developer itching to put an installation on farmland currently in production, as Sol Orchard allegedly did in Ramona, they should be warmly welcomed to Borrego Springs. Whatever water is required to keep an acre of solar panels clean, it is far less than that required to irrigate an acre of citrus in the middle of a desert.

It is a win-win situation that might make even “Bulldozer” Bill Horn smile — despite his spurious contention that Borrego doesn’t really have a water problem